Friday, June 14, 2013

Philosophy from the Crib

I think I got it! The clue is in the "tachyons!" I believe in reincarnation, and superstring theory in quantum physics hints that it is possible to "time travel." When we "shuffle off this mortal coil" the consciousness is no longer confined by matter or gravity. The "tachyons" of the mind tunnel FTL through wormholes, at black holes, to one of an infinite set of parallel universes where we can be born again forward or backward in time. Such beauty exists in this simplicity. It is our consciousness after death that is the ultimate time traveler. We are all time travelers!

Oh, what a journey! I am left breathless by the infinite possibilities! Perhaps one glorious day I will ride with Jack Kerouac. Maybe one great night I will party with Marion Davies and William Hearst at San Simeon. I hope in a next life I remember not to book passage on the Titanic.

Can we begin to understand the strange cosmos? Stephen Hawking said: "to know the Theory of Everything is to truly read the mind of God." Albert Einstein said: "God does not play dice in the universe." Perhaps physicists are not hard-wired to ever find the mysterious and elusive missing piece of the puzzle. Maybe we are just like little goldfish... goldfish who will never ever even understand that 1 + 1 = 2.

We all have a death sentence. But wait! If we get the right tests and then the recommended procedures after the inevitable diagnosis, we can get a little stay of execution. It's about those little stays of execution along the way... the little stays that allow us to continue enjoying in small scale ways whatever this is.

from my 1991 poem, "Last Morning on Twenty-third":

As I hear the sound of the rain begin
to assault the old, tired, faded fire escape-
I start to pack.